Is the AI industry really ready to slow down?

We’re seeing a big debate over AI safety and a potential slowdown, as Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei recently published a plan to “pace the frontier,” while Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has publicly echoed President Donald Trump’s claims that the AI backlash is a hoax and regulation is unnecessary.

On the latest episode of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, Kirsten Korosec, Sean O’Kane, and I discussed whether executives like Amodei and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman are serious about wanting to slow down.

While I was surprised at how many industry leaders seemed to throw their support behind Amodei’s plan, Sean noted that the plan seemed short on details.

And when Kristen asked whether a combination of existing regulation and the workings of the free market could provide enough safeguards on their own, Sean replied, “We have a federal government at the moment that certainly does not seem eager to enforce regulations broadly speaking, let alone specifically speaking here.”

Plus, he argued, “There does not seem like there is a ton of consumer choice driving this market, in the sense of, okay, if one of these companies does something really bad, then they will see an impact in how many cancellations there are or whatever.”

Keep reading for a preview of our conversation, edited for length and clarity.

Anthony Ha: Sean, what do you think? Are we actually going to”‘pace the frontier”?

Sean O’Kane: That sounds, for some reason, like something from “Point Break.” It’s just a very California statement, like, “We’re gonna pace the frontier, bruh.” 

I don’t know. I said on this show last week, I didn’t think we were headed for a slowdown of any kind, in large part because I don’t think these companies are structured in a way where that works.

Anthony, I know you read this stuff pretty closely last weekend as it was all popping off, so I’m curious if you’re maybe more generous than I am, as far as understanding what it is they’re trying to say here.